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In the story of the Prodigal Son a father has two boys. The younger son asks for his inheritance and after wasting his fortune becomes destitute. He returns home with the intention of begging his father to be made one of his hired servants, expecting his relationship with his father is likely severed. The father welcomes junior back home and celebrates his return. The older son is put-off and refuses to participate. The father reminds the elder son that one day he will inherit everything, and that they should still celebrate the return of the younger son’s return - he was lost and is now found. The parable of the Prodigal Son holds many truths: Holding out hope; Deep unconditional love; Family dynamics; Mercy, Grace and Forgiveness. “When we choose to forgive those who intentionally and maliciously harm us … we become a living imitation of Jesus Christ.”~BZ UNconcitional Do you understand the parable - the father’s extravagant love upon the prodigal’s return? It's the same as the Fat…

We read the Scriptures sometimes failing to grasp the bigger story - Christ is the central message of the Old Testament.So we gather, we discuss, we read and interpret the Old Testament in light of the full revelation of God in Jesus. Our study, Finding Jesus in the Minor Prophets, continues: Wednesday February 21st @ 7pm (Directions to Ministry in Motion) Micah, מִיכָה הַמֹּרַשְׁתִּי was a prophet in Judaism who prophesied from approximately 737 to 696 BC in Judah and is the author of the Book of Micah. He is considered one of the twelve minor prophets of the Tanakhand was a contemporary of the prophets Isaiah, Amos and Hosea. He promises that Israel will one day have a righteous leader, a great shepherd-king who will liberate the people.. #MinMchurch #MetroLifeChurch#pkes

Lent is a season where we choose to orient our hearts towards God versus self - to starve ourselves of our little idols in order to join Jesus in the desert. I know, Lent isn't found in the Bible. I've heard my non-denominational friends: 'if it's in the Bible I do it, if it's not, I leave it alone' But be honest, we too easily forget or marginalize our Maker and Redeemer; replacing God with things and ambition. Lent is the season that does something about this situation. It calls us back to God, back to the basics, back to the spiritual realities of life. I invite you to allow the Holy Spirit to search us and to know our hearts. Call attention to and name the things that bind us and keep us from living out the reality of the Kingdom of God.Lenten Prayer: Almighty God, whose only begotten Son, moving in your perfect will, was led by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan; Come quickly to help us - we who are assaulted by many temptations. You know the weaknesses of …

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent. For many Evangelicals, Pentecostals, and Charismatics Ash Wednesday is not a big deal. It's not even highlighted on the church calendar. But Ash Wednesday does speak of two things: Repentance and Mortality - dual themes. Repentance. Do we have anything to repent of? Anyone? Anyone? Of course we do, but putting ashes on your head, I think not. Why not just say an ‘I’m sorry prayer’ and move on? Maybe we’re too embarrassed to repent publicly. Jesus spoke of repenting in Matthew’s Gospel and it was illustrated with sackcloth and ashes.Mortality. Ashes to ashes dust to dust. Death. I don’t like to think about death, the facing my own mortality. But even in our walk with Christ, death is a reality. The lyrics by The Brilliance capture this perfectly: "From dust we've come and dust we are and shall return, be still my soul and let it go…" Knowing that whether it's bread and wine, water and baptism or ashes on a Wednesday, the …

The issue with biblicism is not a matter of whether we read the Bible literally or not. The issue is whether or not we read the Bible in a way that is Christ-centered. Let's encounter Jesus together in the Book of Twelve, Jonah. What a character, he is! He is stubborn. He’s nationalistic & xenophobic. He has a hard time bringing himself to rub shoulders with unlovable people. To be fair, he has a legitimate gripe, the Assyrians have brutalized the Kingdom of Israel, but the Eternal One has the final word. It’s difficult to read Jonah and not think of ourselves, we deserve God’s love - those not like us deserve God’s wrath. Maybe we want to keep God’s grace and mercy to ourselves, thinking we deserve it while others do not? Nothing could be further from the truth...#pkes Join us Wednesday, March 14th @ 7pmDirections to Ministry in Motion/MetroLifeChurch#MinMchurch #MetroLifeChurch

Believing that all people are created in God’s image, we willingly support local and global initiatives that serve those in need, the marginalized and the vulnerable.Your giving + our time = our ability to serve in our local communities while also contributing financially to the work of partner agencies who intentionally demonstrate Jesus’ love through action. Giving online is simple and secure. Click on the 'Donate' button below to make a one-time or recurring donation by credit card or electronic check. Ministry in Motion.ChurchAll gifts are tax-deductible and a year-end giving statement is prepared and sent, the end of each January. Ministry in Motion is a Texas Nonprofit Tax Exempt 501(c)(3) corporation under the US Internal Revenue Service Code. #MetroLifeChurch #MinMChurch

“The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity by contributing to the establishment of the kingdom of God…” ~ Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God Is Within You The kingdom of God.. If it doesn’t look like Jesus, it’s not the kingdom of GodIf it’s the angry, violent, retributive Jesus you desire, it’s not the kingdom of GodIf it smacks of religious rhetoric and heaped with hypocrisy, it’s not thekingdom of God If it isn’t for the “least of these”it’s not the kingdom of God If it’s not of the kingdom of God, you must ask: whose kingdom is it of?Jesus said: Do you want to see the kingdom of God? The kingdom of God is already here among you. The Kingdom of God is Within you…Here’s my take: we can read the Bible every day and still have our hearts firmly against the ways of the kingdom of God. Until we read Scriptures through the lens of the crucified Christ, our exegesis, our understanding and interpretations, become subject to our Americanism, our church bias and a theological status quo that …

A Tongue That Can’t Be Trusted…A heart that conceives evil plans…A false witness who breathes out lies…

I have an SUV for sale on Cars.comA buyer from Indiana wrote saying he was very interested, didn’t haggle much on price and wanted the vehicle quickly, for his son’s birthday. He insisted, we could only do the deal via PayPal. I shared with him another solid way to complete the transaction - he totally balked. This sounded suspicious to me. After a little research and with help from the FTC, my inklings were confirmed, scam. I thought of this fromProverbs: “…Someone who struts around taking advantage of unsuspecting souls and deceiving others is to be avoided. With a wink of his eye, a quick shuffle of his feet, and a slight gesture with his hand, he signals his roguish treachery. With a warped mind and twisted heart, he constantly looks for his own gain at others’ expense, causing friction everywhere he goes. But you watch: his actions will bring…disaster! Treachery and twisted hear…

Obadiah, Wednesday February 7th @ 7pm A small book with a huge message: God cares for his stubborn, rebellious & forgetful children. We'll dive into the shortest book of the OT, read the Prophets where the goal of both the Law and the Prophets was to produce a just and worshipping society. Jesus and his kingdom is where that project finds its fulfillment. The Christ is the true and living Word of God. He is what the Law and Prophets point toward and bow to. Jesus is what the Old Testament was trying to say, but could never fully articulate. #MetroLifeChurch #MinMChurch #pkesDirections to Ministry in Motion

Don't ever give up. Don't ever give in. Don't ever stop trying. Don't ever sell out. And if you find yourself succumbing to one of the above for even a brief moment, pick yourself up, brush yourself off, whisper a prayer, and start where you left off. But never, ever, ever give up. Jesus told his disciples:Go out into the world and share the good news with all of creation…Those that followed Christ understood this process of discipleship - sharing & paying more and more attention to God’s righteousness and less and less attention to themselves. Oh how we can mess this up, self so gets in the way. Think back to Christ’s eleven disciples. They took the command of birthing disciples seriously. They made it their life’s mission. According to tradition, all but one of them (John) was killed for their refusals to stop proclaiming the truth that: Jesus was the Anointed. This hodgepodge of ‘never give up’ followers totally devoted their lives, and ultimately their deaths, t…

Maybe this is my character flaw, maybe. My soul and my heart are growing weary of harsh people, and their toxic lava verbiage. I came to Christ out of profound love, thankful He tolerated me in my imperfections. #MetroLifeChurch #MinMChurch #pkesArt by://visualhunt.com

The Christian life is not just about a personal relationship with God, even if personal faith and responsibility are absolutely necessary. When too much emphasis is placed on a privatize salvation, we run the potential of getting so much wrong.

Avoid the draw to escape church citizenry. Becoming a disciple of Christ was never meant to be a solo expedition. Doing so means we expose ourselves to totally missing the opportunity to see the Eternal and His Holy Spirit in action: in real communities, in actual churches, in non-partisan politics, in obvious differences, in honest-to-goodness marriages, in authentic social discussions and during hard theological disagreements. You can't go it alone. Following Jesus shouldn’t be about intellectual assent, but rather it's communal activity, where-by we help ensure we don’t run the risk of missingthe Word who came to dwell among us. Consider that believing in Jesus and being mentored by the Holy Ghost is largely a group activity, albeit a…

Are you holding a close secret? Are you mum on something you're not supposed to tell anyone? If you’re like many folks I’ve met, you’re holding ‘something or other’ pretty close to your vest. And in doing so, as SNL’s Mike Myers would say: “Oh, I'm getting a little verklempt (farklempt). Most stuff is worth sharing, especially with the right person. While sharing personal “stuff” might seem like an invasion of privacy, it’s so worth the “vulnerability hangover”It’s worth being misunderstood and misrepresented. There’s desirability in discomfort. It's worth the death of your self-image and maybe even your brand. There’s benefit to owning up to what’s inside, no matter how difficult, because as the Psalmist wrote: Hidden things will always come out into the open. Secret things will come to light and be exposed.[1] Secrets bring bondage, sharing brings freedom. Freedom. Here’s what happens when you finally drop the act, when you finally admit that you're not fine, when you …

“..Like a sheep to a shearing, like a lamb to be slaughtered, he went—oh so quietly, oh so willingly..”The crucifixion of Christ, the awful marriage of human sinfulness and the pinnacle of divine grace, must remain an enduring mystery, a mystery of my faith — Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again. Good Friday calls on me to take another look, to remember, His death. ~Selah~ So in my exuberance to treasure all the beauty that is Easter, I must be careful not to scurry past Good Friday. Easter alone does not make Christianity unique. It’s Good Friday, coupled with Easter, where we find the uniqueness of Christianity. As you contemplate the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus, I pray that God will reveal his unfathomable love for you in new ways. May you know the love of the one who gave his life for you…#Pkes #MinMChurch #MetroLifeChurch